Through a series of contacts within his Big Eight company, Max was put in touch with Hambrecht Quist, the famed Venture Capital firm that assisted such high tech startups as Apple, Lotus and other shining stars in the early days of the computer industry. Max was looking for an investor to finance the marketing of his engine that would change the world. His didactic and circumlocu- tous preaching didn't get him far. While everyone was polite at his presentations, afterwards they had little idea of what he was talking about. "The Smart Engine permits anyone to cross-relate individual or matrices of data with an underlying attribute structure that is defined by the user. It's like creating a third dimension. Data is conventionally viewed in a two dimensional viewing field, yet is really a one dimension stream. In either source dimensional view, the addition of a three dimensional attribute structure yields interrelationships that are not inherently obvious. Thus we use graphical representations to simplify the entire process." After several weeks of pounding the high risk financial community of the San Francisco Bay area, Max was despondent. Damn it, he thought. Why don't they understand. I outline the entire theory and they don't get it. Jeez, it's so easy to use. So easy to use. Then the light bulb lit in his mind. Call Pierre. I need Pierre. Call Pierre in New York. "Pierre, it's Max." Max sounded quite excited. "How's the Coast." "Fine, Fine. You'll find out tomorrow. You're booked on American #435 tomorrow." "Max, I can't go to California. I have so much work to do." "Bullshit. You owe me. Or have I forgotten to bill you for the engine?" He was calling in a favor. "Hey, it was my idea. You didn't even understand what I was talking about until . . ." "That's the whole point, Pierre. I can't explain the engine to these Harvard MBA asswipes. It was your idea and you got me to understand. I just need you to get some of these investors to understand and then we can have a company and make some money selling engines." Max's persistence was annoying, but Pierre knew that he had to give in. He owed it to Max. The new presentations Max and Pierre put on went so well that they had three offers for start up financing within a week. And, it was all due to Pierre. His genial personality and ability to convey the subtleties of a complex piece of software using actual demonstrations from his music were the touchy-feely the investors wanted. It wasn't that he was technical; he really wasn't. But Pierre had an innate ability to recognize a problem, theoretical- ly, and reduce it to its most basic components. And the Engine was so easy to use. All you had to do was . . . It worked. The brainy unintelligible technical wizard and char- ismatic front man. And the device, whatever it was, it seemed to work.